Editorial
Volume 1999-1

Editorial
Volume : 1999-1

Dr Kevin R Ronan
Associate Editor

School of Psychology,
Massey University
New Zealand

Special EditionChildren, trauma and disasters

This issue of the Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies contains
two of its three articles on issues pertaining to children, trauma, and disasters.
Thus, with this issue, we signal our continuing commitment to reviewing and
publishing articles in the area of children, adolescence, and families.

The first of the two articles (Huzziff & Ronan, 1999) addresses predictors
of children's ability to cope with a volcanic eruption. {The
action editor for this manuscript was Douglas Paton.} This research is
part of a seven month longitudinal study conducted after the eruption of Mount
Ruapehu in 1995 (Ronan, 1997a, b; Ronan & Johnston, in press; see also Johnston
& Ronan, in press). While we found that a brief, school based intervention
to be effective in reducing self-reported PTSD-related distress and increasing
coping ability (Ronan & Johnston, in press), this research looks at predictors
of change in coping in the two month interval prior to that intervention. The
findings of this study clearly have implications for the planning of future
interventions in the wake of a disaster.

The second article (Woolley & Gabriels, 1999) presents findings combining
a quantitative and qualitative methodology to address children's perceptions
of sexual abuse prevention. These authors present both group-based and more
individual responses. Despite the fact that children had gone through a prevention
programme, children appeared to have some difficulties in clearly identifying
higher risk situations. In addition, common misconceptions continued to be reported.
On the other hand, knowledge increased with age. The authors discuss their findings
in terms of developmental concepts impacting learning. Here again, as with the
other article, these findings have clear implications for sexual abuse prevention
programmes designed to help keep children safe.

I would add here that other research (e.g., Ronan & Johnston, 1997) has
found that as children progressed through increasing levels of education, their
recall of prevention-related information--in this case related to hazards--similarly
increased. Thus, based on these findings, it may be that education programmes
for children concerned with a range of stimuli related to trauma and disasters
may be best delivered in a sequential fashion taking developmental factors into
account. Thus, programmes for young children would contain basic concepts that
would be in line with the child's ability to assimilate information. Later modules
would then incorporate increasingly differentiated information designed to capitalize
on children's increasing ability to understand more refined concepts.

As a final note, let me take this opportunity to invite those in our readership
who have a commitment to assessment, treatment, and other forms of research
with children to consider submitting manuscripts to this journal. In doing so,
we would also invite those manuscripts to consider the pragmatic implications
of their findings to promote the welfare of children and their families.

Ronan, K. R. (1997a). The effects of a series of volcanic eruptions on emotional
and behavioural functioning in children with athsma. New Zealand Medical
Journal, 110, 11-13.

Ronan, K. R. (1997b). The effects of a "benign" disaster: Symptoms
of posttraumatic stress in children following a series of volcanic eruptions.
Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies, 1997-1 Retreived
July 7, 1998 from the World Wide Web: http://www.massey.ac.nz/~trauma/issues/1997-1/ronan1.htm